Relearning the Four Blocks Way – Guided Reading

Last week I ordered a used copy of The Teacher’s Guide to the Four Blocks from Amazon. I had read this book probably six or seven years ago, but couldn’t remember a lot of the information that differentiated Four Blocks from some of the other literacy frameworks. The first school I taught at when I was fresh out of college did not ascribe to any particular educational philosophy or ideology (besides come to work and teach your kids). Teachers used different materials, followed different schedules, and had different ideas about how, what, when, and where kids should be taught. As a new teacher I struggled to find something to become my educational foundation. Eventually I followed a good friend of mine into the Fountas & Pinnell Balanced Literacy school of thought and ended up at an Literacy Collaborative school where the Balanced Literacy framework drove all instruction.

Today I started rereading my new, used Four Blocks book. As I worked my way through the daily overview I was reminded that in most literacy frameworks there is more common ground than differences. The first thing that struck me though was how the Guided Reading Block was structured. Our school district is BIG on guided reading – but guided reading the Fountas & Pinnell (F&P) way; the idea that you pull small groups of students who demonstrate a similar need and skill together for a differentiated, leveled lesson. In Four Blocks, the teacher selects either a big book or a trade book with multiple copies for the students to read together in a group. In the example, pairs of students read together and stopped at a preset point in the book to record the facts they remembered.

Although there were lots of similarities between the F&P and Four Blocks Guided Reading (picture walk, follow-up activity, comprehension check) there were a lot of differences as well. Three big questions that jumped out at me were:

First – How do the partners read together in the guided reading lesson? Sometimes you see partners choral read, echo read, or partner read but I wasn’t sure if there was a specific way that was recommended for this guided reading format.

Second – I always think it is interesting when students are paired in such a way that a stronger student supports a weaker student. My mom was an enrichment teacher and I always remember her saying that strong students are not tutors, they need to be challenged as well. How does the format of whole group reading instruction differentiated learning to meet the needs of all readers?

Third – Time! In the book there was a range of 30-40 minutes for the Guided Reading lesson. Although I know that Four Blocks is recommended for grades one through three, I think some of my first grade students would have had a hard time sitting for 40 minutes for a single lesson without some type of movement or change. 

After reading the Guided Reading introduction I am excited to read the entire Guided Reading section in the book and hopefully can answer, or at least reflect, on some of my initial questions about Four Blocks.